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Testimony: 

Before the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, 
Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

For Release on Delivery: 
Expected at 9:30 a.m. EDT:
Wednesday, April 1, 2009: 

Wildland Fire Management: 

Actions by Federal Agencies and Congress Could Mitigate Rising Fire 
Costs and Their Effects on Other Agency Programs: 

Statement of Robin M. Nazzaro, Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment: 

GAO-09-444T: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-09-444T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on 
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, Committee on 
Appropriations, House of Representatives. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

Our nation’s wildland fire problems have worsened in the past decade. 
The Forest Service within the Department of Agriculture and four 
agencies within the Department of the Interior (Interior) are 
responsible for managing fires on federal lands. Federal appropriations 
to these agencies for wildland fire management have more than doubled 
since the late 1990s, averaging $2.9 billion annually in recent years. 
Rising wildland fire costs have challenged the agencies to meet their 
land management responsibilities. This testimony, based on previous GAO 
reports, discusses (1) the budgetary and programmatic effects of the 
increasing cost of fire management activities and (2) steps the 
agencies could take to help contain wildland fire expenditures and 
steps they could take, and Congress could consider, to reduce the need 
to transfer funds from other programs. 

What GAO Found: 

The sharply rising costs of managing wildland fires have led the Forest 
Service and Interior agencies to transfer funds from other programs to 
help pay for fire suppression and, according to agency officials and 
others, may also be reducing the total funds available to agency 
programs unrelated to fire. GAO reported in 2004 that from fiscal years 
1999 through 2003, the Forest Service and Interior transferred over 
$2.7 billion from nonfire programs to help fund fire suppression. 
Although agencies received additional appropriations to cover about 80 
percent of the transferred funds, GAO found that the transfers led to 
canceled and delayed projects and strained relationships with 
nonfederal partners. Moreover, some of the canceled or delayed 
projects, such as constructing new facilities, were intended to improve 
the agencies’ capabilities to fight fires. Since 2004, funding 
transfers have continued, with the agencies’ transferring funds in 
fiscal years 2006, 2007, and 2008. Furthermore, federal and state 
officials have expressed concern that rising fire management costs are 
reducing the total funds available to the agencies’ nonfire programs. 

As GAO has reported, there are several steps the agencies could take, 
and actions Congress could consider, that could mitigate the rising 
costs of wildland fire management and its effect on the agencies’ other 
programs. 

* Although the agencies have, among other actions, improved decision-
support tools for helping officials select appropriate strategies for 
fighting individual wildland fires, the agencies continue to lack both 
an agencywide strategy for containing fire suppression costs and a 
broader long-term wildland fire management strategy that identifies 
options, along with associated funding, for reducing excess vegetation 
and responding to fires—what GAO has termed a cohesive strategy. 

* The agencies could develop a better method of estimating the 
suppression funds requested, as GAO recommended in 2004. Better 
estimates in a given year could reduce the likelihood that the agencies 
would need to transfer funds from other accounts, yet the agencies 
continue to use an estimation method with known problems. The Forest 
Service told GAO it analyzed alternative methods for estimating needed 
suppression funds but determined that no better method was available. 
Because the agencies had to transfer funds in each of the last 3 years, 
however, a more accurate method for estimating suppression costs may 
still be needed. 

* In addition, Congress may wish to consider establishing a reserve 
account to fund emergency wildland firefighting, which could reduce the 
need for the agencies to transfer funds. The advantages and 
disadvantages of several alternative funding approaches were discussed 
in GAO’s 2004 report. Congress considered at least two bills in 2008 
proposing establishment of a reserve account, but neither bill passed. 
One of those bills was reintroduced in March 2009. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO previously recommended that the Forest Service and Interior take 
several steps to help contain the rising costs of managing wildland 
fires and address the problems associated with transferring funds to 
fight fires. Although the agencies have made some progress, they have 
been slow to implement several key recommendations. GAO also previously 
identified alternative funding approaches Congress could consider, 
which could reduce the need to transfer funds from nonfire accounts. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-444T] or key 
components. For more information, contact Robin M. Nazzaro at (202) 512-
3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the funding of wildland fire 
suppression activities and federal agencies' management of wildland 
fires. Our nation's wildland fire problems have worsened in the past 
decade. Uncharacteristic accumulations of fuels, due in part to past 
fire suppression policies, and severe regional weather and drought have 
contributed to higher-intensity fires and longer fire seasons. At the 
same time, continued development in and near wildlands, an area often 
called the wildland-urban interface, has placed more homes at risk. 
Together these factors have contributed to more than a doubling of 
appropriations for wildland fire management activities--from an average 
of $1.2 billion annually during fiscal years 1996 through 2000 to more 
than $2.9 billion annually during fiscal years 2001 through 2007. Five 
federal agencies--the Forest Service within the Department of 
Agriculture and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land 
Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service within 
the Department of the Interior (Interior)--are responsible for managing 
wildland fires on federal lands. 

Rising fire costs have challenged the agencies' abilities to meet their 
other land management responsibilities. We reported in 2004, for 
example, that the agencies often had to transfer funds from other 
programs to help cover increasing fire suppression costs. While such 
transfers allowed the agencies to fund emergency fire suppression 
activities and help protect natural resources and communities, we 
reported that the transfers also resulted in canceled and delayed 
projects, strained agency relationships with state and local partners, 
and difficulties in managing programs. 

In this context, my testimony today discusses (1) the budgetary and 
programmatic effects of the increasing cost of fire management 
activities and (2) steps the agencies could take to help contain 
wildland fire expenditures and steps they could take, and Congress 
could consider, to reduce the need to transfer funds from other 
programs. To evaluate these issues, we reviewed reports we have issued 
since 2004 discussing federal agencies' management of wildland fires, 
as well as recent agency documents about funding transfers occurring 
since 2004.[Footnote 1] 

Background: 

The federal wildland fire management program has three major 
components: preparedness, suppression, and fuel reduction. To prepare 
for a wildland fire season, the agencies acquire firefighting assets-- 
including firefighters, engines, aircraft, and other equipment--and 
station them either at individual federal land management units (such 
as national forests or national parks) or at centralized dispatch 
locations. The primary purpose of these assets is to respond to fires 
before they become large--a response referred to as initial attack-- 
thus forestalling threats to communities and natural and cultural 
resources. The assets the agencies use for initial attack are funded 
primarily from the agencies' preparedness accounts. In the relatively 
rare instances in which fires escape initial attack and grow large, the 
agencies respond using an interagency system that mobilizes additional 
firefighting assets from federal, state, and local agencies, as well as 
private contractors, regardless of which agency or agencies have 
jurisdiction over the burning lands. Federal agencies typically fund 
the costs of these activities from their wildland fire suppression 
accounts. To reduce the potential for severe wildland fires, lessen the 
damage caused by fires, limit the spread of flammable invasive species, 
and restore and maintain healthy ecosystems, the agencies also reduce 
potentially hazardous vegetation that can fuel fires. They remove or 
modify fuels using prescribed fire, mechanical thinning, herbicides, 
certain grazing methods, or combinations of these and other approaches. 
The agencies fund these activities from their fuel reduction accounts. 

The agencies develop budget requests about 2 years before the fiscal 
year for which funds are requested. They use several different 
processes and systems to develop these requests. For preparedness and 
fuel reduction, the agencies have recently begun implementing a tool 
known as fire program analysis.[Footnote 2] For suppression, the 
agencies have historically used a 10-year rolling average as the 
foundation for their budget requests.[Footnote 3] The year-to-year 
variability in the number, location, and severity of fires, however, 
complicates the accurate estimation of needed suppression funds, which 
often results in appropriated funds' being insufficient to cover actual 
suppression expenditures. In this event, the agencies are authorized to 
use funds from their other programs to pay for emergency firefighting 
activities. 

Federal appropriations to the Forest Service and Interior agencies to 
prepare for and respond to wildland fires, including appropriations for 
reducing fuels, have more than doubled, from an average of $1.2 billion 
from fiscal years 1996 through 2000 to $2.9 billion from fiscal years 
2001 through 2007 (see table 1). Adjusting for inflation, the average 
annual appropriations for these periods increased from $1.5 billion to 
$3.1 billion (in 2007 dollars). The Forest Service received about 70 
percent and Interior about 30 percent of the funds appropriated. 

Table 1: Forest Service and Interior Wildland Fire Appropriations, 
Fiscal Years 1996 through 2007 (millions of dollars): 

Fiscal year: 1996; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $772.4; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]: $984.2. 

Fiscal year: 1997; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $1,432.1; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]: $1,793.3. 

Fiscal year: 1998; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $1,116.7; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]: $1,381.7. 

Fiscal year: 1999; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $1,159.3; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]: $1,415.9. 

Fiscal year: 2000; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $1,598.9; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]: $1,914.2. 

Fiscal year: 2001; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $2,859.9; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]: $3,344.7. 

Fiscal year: 2002; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $2,238.8; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]: $2,569.0. 

Fiscal year: 2003; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $3,165.1; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]:$3,560.2. 

Fiscal year: 2004; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $3,230.6; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]: $3,541.6. 

Fiscal year: 2005; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $2,929.8; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]: $3,144.0. 

Fiscal year: 2006; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $2,701.4; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]: $2,775.4. 

Fiscal year: 2007; 
Total appropriations: Nominal: $3,047.0; 
Total appropriations: Inflation-adjusted[A]: $3,047.0. 

Source: GAO analysis of Congressional Research Service data. 

[A] We adjusted the appropriations dollars for inflation, using the 
chain-weighted gross domestic product price index with fiscal year 2007 
as the base year. 

[End of table] 

Increases in the size and severity of wildland fires, and in the cost 
of preparing for and responding to them, have led federal agencies to 
fundamentally reexamine their approach to wildland fire management. For 
decades, federal agencies aggressively suppressed wildland fires and 
were generally successful in reducing the number of acres burned. 
Rather than eliminating severe wildland fires, however, decades of 
suppression--and the attendant accumulation of brush, small trees, and 
other vegetation--have disrupted ecological cycles and, in some forests 
and grasslands, have intensified fires. Increasingly, the agencies have 
recognized the role fire plays in many ecosystems and the role fire can 
play in the agencies' management of forests and watersheds. The 
agencies worked together to develop a federal wildland fire management 
policy in 1995, which for the first time formally recognized the 
essential role of fire in sustaining natural systems. This policy was 
subsequently reaffirmed and updated in 2001. Two important implications 
of the policy are the agencies' recognition of (1) their need to reduce 
accumulated vegetation that could fuel intense wildland fires and (2) 
the inappropriateness of continued attempts to suppress all fires. 

Funding Transfers Have Delayed or Canceled Projects and Strained 
Relationships with the Agencies' Nonfederal Partners: 

We reported in 2004 that rising wildland fire suppression costs had led 
the Forest Service and Interior to transfer funds from other agency 
programs to help fund suppression activities.[Footnote 4] The Forest 
Service transferred funds from numerous programs, including 
construction and maintenance; the national forest system; and state and 
private forestry programs, which provide grants to states, tribes, 
communities, and private landowners for fire and insect management, 
among other purposes. Interior primarily transferred funds from its 
construction and land acquisition programs. We reported that the 
agencies had transferred more than $2.7 billion from these other 
programs from 1999 through 2003, and that the agencies received 
additional appropriations to cover, on average, about 80 percent of the 
funds transferred. 

Although the agencies received additional appropriations to cover most 
of the transferred funds, we found that the transfers had caused the 
agencies to cancel or delay some projects and fail to fulfill certain 
commitments to their nonfederal partners. We reported, for example, 
that funding transfers delayed planned construction and land 
acquisition projects, which in some cases led to higher project costs 
due to revised budget and construction plans or higher supply and land 
acquisition costs. In one instance, the Forest Service delayed 
purchasing a 65-acre property in Arizona it had planned to acquire for 
approximately $3.2 million in 2002; it was able to purchase the 
property about a year later, but the cost of the property had increased 
by $195,000. Also, although funds were transferred to help the agencies 
suppress wildland fires, among the delayed projects were ones to reduce 
fuels to lower the fire risk to communities, construct new firefighting 
facilities, and provide firefighting training courses. 

Transferring funds to help pay for fire suppression also affected the 
agencies' abilities to fulfill commitments they had made to their 
nonfederal partners, including states, communities, and nonprofit 
organizations. In 2003, for example, the Forest Service transferred $50 
million, only $10 million of which was reimbursed, from its Forest Land 
Enhancement Program. Managed by state forestry agencies, this program 
provides funds to help private landowners improve the health of 
forestlands. We reported that this transfer raised concerns about the 
program's viability, which, if borne out, might cause some private 
forest owners to sell their land for development, leading to habitat 
fragmentation--one of the primary threats the Forest Service has 
identified to the nation's forests. In addition, federal land 
acquisition projects are often facilitated by nonprofit organizations, 
which purchase land from private owners and then sell it to federal 
agencies. Delays caused by transferring funds can, therefore, lead to 
higher costs for those organizations. We reported a case in South 
Carolina, for example, where the Forest Service delayed purchasing a 
property for 1 year, which led a nonprofit organization to incur about 
$300,000 in interest costs. Such delays may lead some nonprofits to 
reconsider working with the agencies. We reported that one organization 
had 22 projects delayed in 2002 and 21 projects delayed in 2003 because 
of funding transfers; a representative from that organization told us 
that if funds continued to be transferred, it would likely invest its 
funds elsewhere rather than work with the Forest Service and Interior. 

Since 2004, funding transfers to help pay for fire suppression have 
continued, with the agencies transferring funds in fiscal years 2006, 
2007, and 2008. These transfers may have caused problems for the 
agencies' nonfire programs similar to those we reported in 2004. An 
August 2008 memo from the Chief of the Forest Service, for example, 
stated that fire transfers that year would effectively rescind or delay 
grants to nonfederal partners and stop work on construction, research, 
and natural resource projects. 

Moreover, although we have not evaluated the impact of rising fire 
costs on funding for the agencies' nonfire programs, federal and state 
officials have expressed concern that rising fire costs are reducing 
the total funds the agencies receive for their other programs. The 
Chief's August 2008 memo also stated that because the agency must fund 
the expected cost of managing fires out of its total available funds, 
all other Forest Service activities "have experienced a steady decline 
in funding." A similar concern was expressed in a letter written by 
five former Forest Service Chiefs and in a statement before this 
Subcommittee last year by the National Association of State Foresters. 

The Agencies Could Take Additional Steps to Contain Rising Wildland 
Fire Costs and Improve Cost Estimates, and Congress Could Consider 
Alternative Funding Approaches: 

Several of our previous reports, including our 2004 report on fire- 
related funding transfers, identified steps the agencies could take, 
and actions Congress could consider, which could help address the 
rising cost of wildland fire management and its effect on the agencies' 
other programs. Reducing the overall cost of fire suppression could 
help the agencies mitigate the effects of fire costs on their nonfire 
programs and avoid the need to transfer funds. We issued a number of 
reports in recent years that examined different aspects of the 
agencies' wildland fire management programs, including a testimony 
before this Subcommittee in February 2008 in which we highlighted 
several key recommendations that, if implemented, could help the 
agencies contain the overall costs of managing wildland fires.[Footnote 
5] Among other recommendations, we discussed the need for the agencies 
to: 

* develop a cohesive strategy that identifies options and associated 
costs to reduce potentially hazardous vegetation and address wildland 
fire problems. Despite our repeated calls for a cohesive wildland fire 
strategy, the agencies have yet to develop one. In 1999, to address the 
problem of excess fuels and their potential to increase the severity of 
wildland fires and cost of suppression efforts, we recommended that a 
cohesive strategy be developed to identify available long-term options 
for reducing fuels and the associated costs. By laying out various 
potential approaches for addressing wildland fire, estimated costs 
associated with each approach, and the trade-offs involved, such a 
strategy would help Congress and the agencies make informed decisions 
about effective and affordable long-term approaches to addressing the 
nation's wildland fire problems. Six years later, in 2005, we 
reiterated the need for a cohesive strategy and broadened our 
recommendation's focus to better address the interrelated nature of 
fuel reduction efforts and wildland fire response. In January 2009, 
agency officials told us they were working to create such a cohesive 
strategy, although they had no estimate of when the strategy would be 
completed. 

* establish clear goals and a strategy to help contain wildland fire 
costs. In 2007, we reported that the agencies were taking a number of 
steps intended to help contain wildland fire costs, including improving 
decision-support tools for helping officials select strategies for 
fighting wildland fires, but that they had not clearly defined cost- 
containment goals or developed a strategy for achieving those goals-- 
steps that are fundamental to sound program management. Agency 
officials identified several documents that they argued provide clearly 
defined goals and objectives constituting their strategy to contain 
costs. In our view, however, these documents lack the clarity and 
specificity needed by officials in the field to help manage and contain 
wildland fire costs. We therefore continue to believe that our 
recommendations for developing clear goals and a strategy for 
containing costs, if effectively implemented, would help the agencies 
better manage their cost-containment efforts and improve their ability 
to contain wildland fire costs. 

Since our testimony last year, the agencies have continued to take 
steps intended to help improve their management of wildland fires. They 
have, for example, been reviewing their guidance for implementing the 
federal wildland fire management policy. Senior agency officials told 
us they expect to revise the guidance this year to allow agency 
officials more flexibility in selecting strategies for managing 
wildland fire incidents, which could help reduce the costs of managing 
some fires. We are currently reviewing the agencies' actions aimed at 
addressing the shortcomings we previously identified and expect to 
report on the status of these actions later this year. 

Better estimates of the costs of suppressing fires in a given year 
would also reduce the likelihood that the agencies would need to 
transfer funds from other accounts. We recommended in 2004 that the 
agencies improve their methods for estimating annual suppression costs, 
but the agencies continue to use a 10-year suppression cost average as 
the foundation of their budget request. Interior, in commenting on a 
draft of the 2004 report, stated it believed that the current method 
for predicting costs was a "reasonable and durable basis for 
suppression budgeting." The Forest Service, however, concurred with our 
recommendation. A Forest Service official told us in 2008 that the 
agency had analyzed alternative methods for estimating needed 
suppression funds but determined that no better method was available. 
While we recognize that the accuracy of the 10-year average is likely 
to improve as recent years with higher suppression costs are included 
in that average, the need to transfer funds in each of the last 3 years 
suggests that the agencies should continue to seek a more accurate 
method for estimating needed suppression costs. 

In addition to the actions we believe the agencies need to take, 
Congress may wish to consider legislating alternative approaches to 
funding wildland fire suppression that could help reduce the need for 
the agencies to transfer funds. As we reported in 2004, for example, 
Congress could establish a reserve account dedicated to funding 
wildfire suppression activities, which the agencies could access when 
their suppression accounts are depleted. If such an account is 
established, Congress could provide either a specified amount (known as 
a definite appropriation) or as much funding as the agencies need to 
fund emergency suppression (known as an indefinite appropriation); 
Congress could also determine whether any funds it provides would be 
available to the agencies only for a single fiscal year or also in 
future years. 

Each of these approaches has advantages and disadvantages. Establishing 
a reserve account with a definite appropriation would provide the 
agencies with incentives to contain suppression costs within the amount 
in the reserve account, but depending on the size of the appropriation 
and the severity of a fire season, suppression costs could still exceed 
the funds reserved, and the agencies might still need to transfer funds 
from other programs. An account with an indefinite appropriation, in 
contrast, would eliminate the need for transferring funds from other 
programs but would offer no inherent incentives for the agencies to 
contain suppression costs. Furthermore, both definite and indefinite 
appropriations could raise the overall federal budget deficit, 
depending on whether funding levels for other agency, or government, 
programs are reduced. In 2008, Congress considered at least two bills-
-the Federal Land Assistance, Management, and Enhancement Act and the 
Emergency Wildland Fire Response Act of 2008--that proposed 
establishing a wildland fire suppression reserve account, although 
neither bill became law.[Footnote 6] The Federal Land Assistance, 
Management, and Enhancement Act was reintroduced in March 
2009.[Footnote 7] The administration's budget overview for fiscal year 
2010 proposes a $282 million reserve account for the Forest Service and 
a $75 million reserve account for Interior to provide funding for 
firefighting when the appropriated 10-year average is exhausted. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased 
to answer any questions that you or other Members of the Subcommittee 
may have at this time. 

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

For further information about this testimony, please contact me at 
(202) 512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 
Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last 
page of this statement. Steve Gaty, Assistant Director; David P. 
Bixler; Ellen W. Chu; Jonathan Dent; Carol Henn; and Richard P. Johnson 
made key contributions to this statement. 

Related GAO Products: 

Wildland Fire Management: Interagency Budget Tool Needs Further 
Development to Fully Meet Key Objectives. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-68]. Washington, D.C.: November 24, 
2008. 

Wildland Fire Management: Federal Agencies Lack Key Long-and Short-Term 
Management Strategies for Using Program Funds Effectively. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-433T]. Washington, D.C.: February 
12, 2008. 

Wildland Fire Management: Better Information and a Systematic Process 
Could Improve Agencies' Approach to Allocating Fuel Reduction Funds and 
Selecting Projects. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-1168]. Washington, D.C.: September 
28, 2007. 

Wildland Fire Management: Lack of Clear Goals or a Strategy Hinders 
Federal Agencies' Efforts to Contain the Costs of Fighting Fires. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-655]. Washington, D.C.: 
June 1, 2007. 

Wildland Fire Management: Update on Federal Agency Efforts to Develop a 
Cohesive Strategy to Address Wildland Fire Threats. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-671R]. Washington, D.C.: May 1, 
2006. 

Wildland Fire Suppression: Lack of Clear Guidance Raises Concerns about 
Cost Sharing between Federal and Nonfederal Entities. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-570]. Washington, D.C.: May 30, 
2006. 

Wildland Fire Management: Important Progress Has Been Made, but 
Challenges Remain to Completing a Cohesive Strategy. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-147]. Washington, D.C.: January 14, 
2005. 

Wildland Fires: Forest Service and BLM Need Better Information and a 
Systematic Approach for Assessing the Risks of Environmental Effects. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-705]. Washington, D.C.: 
June 24, 2004. 

Wildfire Suppression: Funding Transfers Cause Project Cancellations and 
Delays, Strained Relationships, and Management Disruptions. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-612]. Washington, D.C.: June 2, 
2004. 

Wildland Fire Management: Additional Actions Required to Better 
Identify and Prioritize Lands Needing Fuels Reduction. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-805]. Washington, D.C.: August 15, 
2003. 

Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy Is Needed to Address 
Catastrophic Wildfire Threats. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/RCED-99-65]. Washington, D.C.: April 2, 
1999. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] These previous performance audits were conducted in accordance with 
generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards 
require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, 
appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and 
conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence 
obtained provided a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions 
based on our audit objectives. 

[2] Our recent review of the fire program analysis tool identified 
several shortcomings that need to be addressed; see GAO, Wildland Fire 
Management: Interagency Budget Tool Needs Further Development to Fully 
Meet Key Objectives, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-68] 
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 24, 2008). The agencies have also developed 
other systems to help them allocate fuel reduction funds among the 
federal agencies; see GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Better Information 
and a Systematic Process Could Improve Agencies' Approach to Allocating 
Fuel Reduction Funds and Selecting Projects, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-1168] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 28, 
2007). At the time of our 2008 report, the agencies had yet to decide 
how they would use the information from these different systems to 
develop their budget requests and allocate their fuel reduction funds. 

[3] The agencies calculate a simple rolling or moving average by 
computing average annual expenditures over a 10-year period and 
updating the average each year, using expenditures from the most recent 
10 years. Each year's value receives equal weight in the average. The 
moving average is generally considered to be a lagging indicator of 
current costs. 

[4] GAO, Wildfire Suppression: Funding Transfers Cause Project 
Cancellations and Delays, Strained Relationships, and Management 
Disruptions, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-612] 
(Washington, D.C.: June 2, 2004). 

[5] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-68]; Wildland Fire 
Management: Federal Agencies Lack Key Long-and Short-Term Management 
Strategies for Using Program Funds Effectively, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-433T] (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 12, 
2008); [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-1168]; Wildland 
Fire Management: Lack of Clear Goals or a Strategy Hinders Federal 
Agencies' Efforts to Contain the Costs of Fighting Fires, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-655] (Washington, D.C.: June 1, 
2007); Wildland Fire Suppression: Lack of Clear Guidance Raises 
Concerns about Cost Sharing between Federal and Nonfederal Entities, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-570] (Washington, D.C.: 
May 30, 2006); and Wildland Fire Management: Update on Federal Agency 
Efforts to Develop a Cohesive Strategy to Address Wildland Fire 
Threats, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-671R] 
(Washington, D.C.: May 1, 2006). 

[6] H.R. 5541, 110th Cong. (2nd sess., 2008); H.R. 5648, 110th Cong. 
(2nd sess., 2008). 

[7] S. 561, 111th Cong. (1st sess., 2009); H.R. 1404, 111th Cong. (1st 
sess., 2009). 

[End of section] 

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